XII

To the Earl of Shelburne

Philadelphia,
Oct. 29, 1782

Thomas Paine

MY LORD, — A speech,
which has been printed in several of the British and New York newspapers, as
coming from your lordship, in answer to one from the Duke of Richmond, of the
10th of July last, contains expressions and opinions so new and singular, and
so enveloped in mysterious reasoning, that I address this publication to you,
for the purpose of giving them a free and candid examination. The speech I
allude to is in these words:

"His lordship said, it had been mentioned in another place, that he had
been guilty of inconsistency. To clear himself of this, he asserted that he
still held the same principles in respect to American independence which he at
first imbibed. He had been, and yet was of opinion, whenever the Parliament of
Great Britain acknowledges that point, the sun of England's glory is set
forever. Such were the sentiments he possessed on a former day, and such the
sentiments he continued to hold at this hour. It was the opinion of Lord
Chatham, as well as many other able statesmen. Other noble lords, however,
think differently, and as the majority of the cabinet support them, he
acquiesced in the measure, dissenting from the idea; and the point is settled
for bringing the matter into the full discussion of Parliament, where it will
be candidly, fairly, and impartially debated. The independence of America would
end in the ruin of England; and that a peace patched up with France, would give
that proud enemy the means of yet trampling on this country. The sun of
England's glory he wished not to see set forever; he looked for a spark at
least to be left, which might in time light us up to a new day. But if
independence was to be granted, if Parliament deemed that measure prudent, he
foresaw, in his own mind, that England was undone. He wished to God that he had
been deputed to Congress, that be might plead the cause of that country as well
as of this, and that he might exercise whatever powers he possessed as an
orator, to save both from ruin, in a conviction to Congress, that, if their
independence was signed, their liberties were gone forever.

"Peace, his lordship added, was a desirable object, but it must be an
honorable peace, and not an humiliating one, dictated by France, or insisted on
by America. It was very true, that this kingdom was not in a flourishing state,
it was impoverished by war. But if we were not rich, it was evident that France
was poor. If we were straitened in our finances, the enemy were exhausted in
their resources. This was a great empire; it abounded with brave men, who were
able and willing to fight in a common cause; the language of humiliation should
not, therefore, be the language of Great Britain. His lordship said, that he
was not afraid nor ashamed of those expressions going to America. There were
numbers, great numbers there, who were of the same way of thinking, in respect
to that country being dependent on this, and who, with his lordship, perceived
ruin and independence linked together."

Thus far the speech; on which I remark — That his lordship is a total
stranger to the mind and sentiments of America; that he has wrapped himself up
in fond delusion, that something less than independence, may, under his
administration, be accepted; and he wishes himself sent to Congress, to prove
the most extraordinary of all doctrines, which is, that independence, the
sublimest of all human conditions, is loss of liberty.

In answer to which we may say, that in order to know what the contrary word
dependence means, we have only to look back to those years of severe
humiliation, when the mildest of all petitions could obtain no other notice
than the haughtiest of all insults; and when the base terms of unconditional
submission were demanded, or undistinguishable destruction threatened. It is
nothing to us that the ministry have been changed, for they may be changed
again. The guilt of a government is the crime of a whole country; and the
nation that can, though but for a moment, think and act as England has done,
can never afterwards be believed or trusted. There are cases in which it is as
impossible to restore character to life, as it is to recover the dead. It is a
phoenix that can expire but once, and from whose ashes there is no
resurrection. Some offences are of such a slight composition, that they reach
no further than the temper, and are created or cured by a thought. But the sin
of England has struck the heart of America, and nature has not left in our
power to say we can forgive.

Your lordship wishes for an opportunity to plead before Congress the cause
of England and America, and to save, as you say, both from ruin.

That the country, which, for more than seven years has sought our
destruction, should now cringe to solicit our protection, is adding the
wretchedness of disgrace to the misery of disappointment; and if England has
the least spark of supposed honor left, that spark must be darkened by asking,
and extinguished by receiving, the smallest favor from America; for the
criminal who owes his life to the grace and mercy of the injured, is more
executed by living, than he who dies.

But a thousand pleadings, even from your lordship, can have no effect.
Honor, interest, and every sensation of the heart, would plead against you. We
are a people who think not as you think; and what is equally true, you cannot
feel as we feel. The situations of the two countries are exceedingly different.
Ours has been the seat of war; yours has seen nothing of it. The most wanton
destruction has been committed in our sight; the most insolent barbarity has
been acted on our feelings. We can look round and see the remains of burnt and
destroyed houses, once the fair fruit of hard industry, and now the striking
monuments of British brutality. We walk over the dead whom we loved, in every
part of America, and remember by whom they fell. There is scarcely a village
but brings to life some melancholy thought, and reminds us of what we have
suffered, and of those we have lost by the inhumanity of Britain. A thousand
images arise to us, which, from situation, you cannot see, and are accompanied
by as many ideas which you cannot know; and therefore your supposed system of
reasoning would apply to nothing, and all your expectations die of themselves.

The question whether England shall accede to the independence of America,
and which your lordship says is to undergo a parliamentary discussion, is so
very simple, and composed of so few cases, that it scarcely needs a debate.

It is the only way out of an expensive and ruinous war, which has no object,
and without which acknowledgment there can be no peace.

But your lordship says, the sun of Great Britain will set whenever she
acknowledges the independence of America. — Whereas the metaphor would
have been strictly just, to have left the sun wholly out of the figure, and
have ascribed her not acknowledging it to the influence of the moon.

But the expression, if true, is the greatest confession of disgrace that
could be made, and furnishes America with the highest notions of sovereign
independent importance. Mr. Wedderburne, about the year 1776, made use of an
idea of much the same kind, — Relinquish America! says he — What is
it but to desire a giant to shrink spontaneously into a dwarf.

Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little internal
consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes upon them, their sun
is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in obscurity, and contract into
insignificant animals? Was America, then, the giant of the empire, and England
only her dwarf in waiting! Is the case so strangely altered, that those who
once thought we could not live without them, are now brought to declare that
they cannot exist without us? Will they tell to the world, and that from their
first minister of state, that America is their all in all; that it is by her
importance only that they can live, and breathe, and have a being? Will they,
who long since threatened to bring us to their feet, bow themselves to ours,
and own that without us they are not a nation? Are they become so unqualified
to debate on independence, that they have lost all idea of it themselves, and
are calling to the rocks and mountains of America to cover their
insignificance? Or, if America is lost, is it manly to sob over it like a child
for its rattle, and invite the laughter of the world by declarations of
disgrace? Surely, a more consistent line of conduct would be to bear it without
complaint; and to show that England, without America, can preserve her
independence, and a suitable rank with other European powers. You were not
contented while you had her, and to weep for her now is childish.

But Lord Shelburne thinks something may yet be done. What that something is,
or how it is to be accomplished, is a matter in obscurity. By arms there is no
hope. The experience of nearly eight years, with the expense of an hundred
million pounds sterling, and the loss of two armies, must positively decide
that point. Besides, the British have lost their interest in America with the
disaffected. Every part of it has been tried. There is no new scene left for
delusion: and the thousands who have been ruined by adhering to them, and have
now to quit the settlements which they had acquired, and be conveyed like
transports to cultivate the deserts of Augustine and Nova Scotia, has put an
end to all further expectations of aid.

If you cast your eyes on the people of England, what have they to console
themselves with for the millions expended? Or, what encouragement is there left
to continue throwing good money after bad? America can carry on the war for ten
years longer, and all the charges of government included, for less than you can
defray the charges of war and government for one year. And I, who know both
countries, know well, that the people of America can afford to pay their share
of the expense much better than the people of England can. Besides, it is their
own estates and property, their own rights, liberties and government, that they
are defending; and were they not to do it, they would deserve to lose all, and
none would pity them. The fault would be their own, and their punishment just.

The British army in America care not how long the war lasts. They enjoy an
easy and indolent life. They fatten on the folly of one country and the spoils
of another; and, between their plunder and their prey, may go home rich. But
the case is very different with the laboring farmer, the working tradesman, and
the necessitous poor in England, the sweat of whose brow goes day after day to
feed, in prodigality and sloth, the army that is robbing both them and us.
Removed from the eye of that country that supports them, and distant from the
government that employs them, they cut and carve for themselves, and there is
none to call them to account.

But England will be ruined, says Lord Shelburne, if America is independent.

Then I say, is England already ruined, for America is already independent:
and if Lord Shelburne will not allow this, he immediately denies the fact which
he infers. Besides, to make England the mere creature of America, is paying too
great a compliment to us, and too little to himself.

But the declaration is a rhapsody of inconsistency. For to say, as Lord
Shelburne has numberless times said, that the war against America is ruinous,
and yet to continue the prosecution of that ruinous war for the purpose of
avoiding ruin, is a language which cannot be understood. Neither is it possible
to see how the independence of America is to accomplish the ruin of England
after the war is over, and yet not affect it before. America cannot be more
independent of her, nor a greater enemy to her, hereafter than she now is; nor
can England derive less advantages from her than at present: why then is ruin
to follow in the best state of the case, and not in the worst? And if not in
the worst, why is it to follow at all?

That a nation is to be ruined by peace and commerce, and fourteen or fifteen
millions a-year less expenses than before, is a new doctrine in politics. We
have heard much clamor of national savings and economy; but surely the true
economy would be, to save the whole charge of a silly, foolish, and headstrong
war; because, compared with this, all other retrenchments are baubles and
trifles.

But is it possible that Lord Shelburne can be serious in supposing that the
least advantage can be obtained by arms, or that any advantage can be equal to
the expense or the danger of attempting it? Will not the capture of one army
after another satisfy him, must all become prisoners? Must England ever be the
sport of hope, and the victim of delusion? Sometimes our currency was to fail;
another time our army was to disband; then whole provinces were to revolt. Such
a general said this and that; another wrote so and so; Lord Chatham was of this
opinion; and lord somebody else of another. To-day 20,000 Russians and 20
Russian ships of the line were to come; to-morrow the empress was abused
without mercy or decency. Then the Emperor of Germany was to be bribed with a
million of money, and the King of Prussia was to do wonderful things. At one
time it was, Lo here! and then it was, Lo there! Sometimes this power, and
sometimes that power, was to engage in the war, just as if the whole world was
mad and foolish like Britain. And thus, from year to year, has every straw been
catched at, and every Will-with-a-wisp led them a new dance.

This year a still newer folly is to take place. Lord Shelburne wishes to be
sent to Congress, and he thinks that something may be done.

Are not the repeated declarations of Congress, and which all America
supports, that they will not even hear any proposals whatever, until the
unconditional and unequivocal independence of America is recognised; are not, I
say, these declarations answer enough?

But for England to receive any thing from America now, after so many
insults, injuries and outrages, acted towards us, would show such a spirit of
meanness in her, that we could not but despise her for accepting it. And so far
from Lord Shelburne's coming here to solicit it, it would be the greatest
disgrace we could do them to offer it. England would appear a wretch indeed, at
this time of day, to ask or owe any thing to the bounty of America. Has not the
name of Englishman blots enough upon it, without inventing more? Even Lucifer
would scorn to reign in heaven by permission, and yet an Englishman can creep
for only an entrance into America. Or, has a land of liberty so many charms,
that to be a doorkeeper in it is better than to be an English minister of
state?

But what can this expected something be? Or, if obtained, what can it amount
to, but new disgraces, contentions and quarrels? The people of America have for
years accustomed themselves to think and speak so freely and contemptuously of
English authority, and the inveteracy is so deeply rooted, that a person
invested with any authority from that country, and attempting to exercise it
here, would have the life of a toad under a harrow. They would look on him as
an interloper, to whom their compassion permitted a residence. He would be no
more than the Mungo of a farce; and if he disliked that, he must set off. It
would be a station of degradation, debased by our pity, and despised by our
pride, and would place England in a more contemptible situation than any she
has yet been in during the war. We have too high an opinion of ourselves, even
to think of yielding again the least obedience to outlandish authority; and for
a thousand reasons, England would be the last country in the world to yield it
to. She has been treacherous, and we know it. Her character is gone, and we
have seen the funeral.

Surely she loves to fish in troubled waters, and drink the cup of
contention, or she would not now think of mingling her affairs with those of
America. It would be like a foolish dotard taking to his arms the bride that
despises him, or who has placed on his head the ensigns of her disgust. It is
kissing the hand that boxes his ears, and proposing to renew the exchange. The
thought is as servile as the war is wicked, and shows the last scene of the
drama to be as inconsistent as the first.

As America is gone, the only act of manhood is to let her go. Your lordship
had no hand in the separation, and you will gain no honor by temporising
politics. Besides, there is something so exceedingly whimsical, unsteady, and
even insincere in the present conduct of England, that she exhibits herself in
the most dishonorable colors.

On the second of August last, General Carleton and Admiral Digby wrote to
General Washington in these words:

"The resolution of the House of Commons, of the 27th of February last,
has been placed in Your Excellency's hands, and intimations given at the same
time that further pacific measures were likely to follow. Since which, until
the present time, we have had no direct communications with England; but a mail
is now arrived, which brings us very important information. We are acquainted,
sir, by authority, that negotiations for a general peace have already commenced
at Paris, and that Mr. Grenville is invested with full powers to treat with all
the parties at war, and is now at Paris in execution of his commission. And we
are further, sir, made acquainted, that His Majesty, in order to remove any
obstacles to this peace which he so ardently wishes to restore, has commanded
his ministers to direct Mr. Grenville, that the independence of the Thirteen
United Provinces, should be proposed by him in the first instance, instead of
making it a condition of a general treaty."

Now, taking your present measures into view, and comparing them with the
declaration in this letter, pray what is the word of your king, or his
ministers, or the Parliament, good for? Must we not look upon you as a
confederated body of faithless, treacherous men, whose assurances are fraud,
and their language deceit? What opinion can we possibly form of you, but that
you are a lost, abandoned, profligate nation, who sport even with your own
character, and are to be held by nothing but the bayonet or the halter?

To say, after this, that the sun of Great Britain will be set whenever she
acknowledges the independence of America, when the not doing it is the
unqualified lie of government, can be no other than the language of ridicule,
the jargon of inconsistency. There were thousands in America who predicted the
delusion, and looked upon it as a trick of treachery, to take us from our
guard, and draw off our attention from the only system of finance, by which we
can be called, or deserve to be called, a sovereign, independent people. The
fraud, on your part, might be worth attempting, but the sacrifice to obtain it
is too high.

There are others who credited the assurance, because they thought it
impossible that men who had their characters to establish, would begin with a
lie. The prosecution of the war by the former ministry was savage and horrid;
since which it has been mean, trickish, and delusive. The one went greedily
into the passion of revenge, the other into the subtleties of low contrivance;
till, between the crimes of both, there is scarcely left a man in America, be
he Whig or Tory, who does not despise or detest the conduct of Britain.

The management of Lord Shelburne, whatever may be his views, is a caution to
us, and must be to the world, never to regard British assurances. A perfidy so
notorious cannot be hid. It stands even in the public papers of New York, with
the names of Carleton and Digby affixed to it. It is a proclamation that the
king of England is not to be believed; that the spirit of lying is the
governing principle of the ministry. It is holding up the character of the
House of Commons to public infamy, and warning all men not to credit them. Such
are the consequences which Lord Shelburne's management has brought upon his
country.

After the authorized declarations contained in Carleton and Digby's letter,
you ought, from every motive of honor, policy and prudence, to have fulfilled
them, whatever might have been the event. It was the least atonement that you
could possibly make to America, and the greatest kindness you could do to
yourselves; for you will save millions by a general peace, and you will lose as
many by continuing the war.

Common Sense.
Philadelphia, Oct. 29, 1782.

P. S. The manuscript copy of this letter is sent your lordship, by the way
of our head-quarters, to New York, inclosing a late pamphlet of mine, addressed
to the Abbe Raynal, which will serve to give your lordship some idea of the
principles and sentiments of America.